Nigeria’s Senate has run out of patience.
On Wednesday, the Senate Committee on Public Accounts ordered the arrest of Mele Kyari, the former Group Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, after he failed, for the ninth time, to appear before lawmakers probing alleged unaccounted funds of N210 trillion linked to the national oil company’s operations between 2017 and 2023.
Committee Chairman Senator Ibrahim Dankwambo, representing Gombe North, put the motion to a voice vote. The room voted. And then he gave the order that every Nigerian watching this case had been waiting to hear.
“Wherever Mele Kyari is, he should be arrested and brought before this committee.”
Mele Kolo Kyari, born in Maiduguri on January 8, 1965, served as NNPCL’s Group Chief Executive Officer from July 7, 2019, to April 2, 2025. He was appointed under President Muhammadu Buhari and continued in the role under President Tinubu until his replacement by Bayo Ojulari earlier this year.
During his six-year tenure, Kyari was one of the most powerful figures in Nigeria’s oil sector. He oversaw the conversion of the old NNPC into NNPCL, published audited financial statements for the first time in the company’s history, and represented Nigeria at OPEC as the country’s national representative.
Now the same audited financial records he published are at the centre of a major legislative investigation.
The Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation raised 19 audit queries against NNPCL covering the period from 2017 to 2023. Those queries flag unresolved financial entries, accounting discrepancies, and transactions the Auditor-General believes were never properly accounted for, with the questioned figures totalling N210 trillion.
The Senate Committee on Public Accounts has been working through those 19 queries since at least March 2026, when Kyari and several former NNPCL officials were first summoned to appear. Wednesday’s session was the ninth time the committee had convened on these matters.
Kyari has not appeared once.
The hearing on Wednesday, June 10, began with tension already built in.
Two senators, Saliu Mustapha representing Kwara Central and Tony Nwoye representing Anambra North, urged the committee to grant Kyari more time. They told the room he was hospitalised in Germany and receiving medical treatment abroad. Senator Nwoye said he had personally spoken to Kyari and been informed of the hospitalisation.
That explanation did not go down well.
Senator Abdul Ningi, who had been previously vocal on accountability matters in this chamber, pushed back immediately. He argued that verbal reports of illness were insufficient. If Kyari was genuinely hospitalised, he said, the committee deserved to see official medical documentation confirming it, not secondhand information relayed by fellow senators.
Senator Victor Umeh of Anambra Central moved the formal motion for an arrest warrant. The committee’s Deputy Chairman, Senator Peter Nwaebonyi, backed it with language that left no room for interpretation.
“This is the ninth time this committee is meeting on the 19 queries raised against the NNPCL by the Office of the Auditor-General of the Federation, three of which were chaired by me. The time to issue a warrant of arrest against Mele Kyari is now because the committee must conclude its assignment and report back to the Senate.”
Former Edo State Governor and senator representing Edo North, Adams Oshiomhole, added a line that will be quoted for some time.
“Some people believe they are bigger than Nigeria. The law must be effective when it catches the lion, not only when it catches the rabbit.”
The voice vote carried. Dankwambo issued the directive. Security agencies have been instructed to produce Kyari before the panel.
Within hours of the arrest warrant, Kyari wrote to the committee.
In a letter addressed to Chairman Dankwambo, dated June 10, 2026, Kyari said he had already formally notified the committee in a letter dated May 11, 2026, that he was abroad receiving medical treatment and unable to appear.
“I refer to the news of the arrest warrant issued against me during the proceedings of your esteemed Committee today, June 10, 2026. I am deeply shocked by the issuance of the warrant,” he stated.
The committee has not publicly responded to the letter as of the time of this report.
This is where the story gets complicated, and why I think you deserve the full picture.
The former Chief Financial Officer of NNPCL, Umar Ajiya Isa, appeared before the committee and directly challenged the N210 trillion allegation. He did not hedge. He did not deflect. He told the lawmakers, on the record, that the number is wrong.
His argument: NNPCL generated approximately N54.5 trillion in total gross revenue between 2017 and 2023. The N210 trillion figure being described as unaccounted for is actually higher than everything the company earned in those six years combined. That arithmetic, he argued, makes the allegation structurally impossible.
Ajiya said the figures at the centre of the controversy are largely internal accounting entries between different subsidiaries within NNPCL’s corporate structure. Transactions between holding companies and subsidiaries, he explained, can appear as large movements of funds in audit reports when they are, in reality, internal transfers being double-counted across group accounts.
He also made a pointed observation about transparency. For more than 40 years, NNPCL’s accounts were either not prepared, not published, or not submitted to the Auditor-General. It was during Kyari’s tenure that the company published audited financial statements for the first time. Ajiya argued that no organisation hiding a fraud would voluntarily open its books that way.
“If money had gone missing at NNPC during our tenure, we would not have had the confidence to publish audited accounts,” he said.
The committee heard his submission. The arrest warrant for Kyari stands regardless.
Three things matter going forward.
First, the arrest warrant. Security agencies have been directed to produce Kyari before the panel. He says he is hospitalised in Germany. Whether Nigerian security agencies can compel the appearance of a former official receiving medical treatment abroad is a legal and diplomatic question this committee will have to answer.
Second, the 19 audit queries. Kyari’s appearance or non-appearance is one thread. The substantive questions raised by the Auditor-General about NNPCL’s financial records still need to be answered. The committee has heard Ajiya’s side. It needs Kyari’s as well.
Third, the current NNPCL GCEO, Bayo Ojulari, was represented at Wednesday’s session by the company’s Chief Financial Officer, Dapo Segun. Dankwambo excused Ojulari from the proceedings. The current administration’s exposure to the fallout from this investigation is still developing.
Nigeria borrows to run its government. It relies on oil revenue to service that debt and fund its budget. If there are genuine unanswered questions about how that oil revenue was managed between 2017 and 2023, those are not questions only for senators in a committee room in Abuja.
They are questions every Nigerian taxpayer has a right to see answered.
